'Aviation Week' relaunches

McGraw-Hill Cos.' July relaunch of Aviation Week & Space Technology was the latest in a series of initiatives designed to boost the brand's audience and create more integrated marketing packages.
The redesigned magazine features expanded coverage of defense technology and MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) content. Previously, those topics were covered in standalone publications with monthly frequencies.
“AW&ST has traditionally provided advertisers with targeted demographic buys, but never these critical content areas since they were standalone,” said Anne McMahon, VP-data, analytics and marketing at Aviation Week. “It's now a model that focuses on both content and audience expansion.”
The brand was also relaunched on mobile platforms.
With the latest changes, Aviation Week has expanded its reach to 30,000 additional decision-makers in the aviation, aerospace and defense sectors, raising the publication's total circulation to 116,000.
Earlier this year, the brand expanded its aircraft fleet database, which now contains detailed information on 120,000 aircraft worldwide.
The new data and analytics capabilities are being integrated with the subscription services Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) and MRO Prospector.
“We continue to invest, and we're going to invest even more, in audience and content,” McMahon said. “But delivery, platforms, streamlining choices—some of this is really trying to make things simpler for people to buy from us and integrate.”
In addition to beefing up its fleet database, Aviation Week invested in a new platform for its digital products, including a redesign of AviationWeek.com that debuted in April. In August, AviationWeek.com garnered 2.2 million page views and 450,000 unique monthly visitors, according to Webtrends.
The revamped AviationWeek.com, which had last undergone a major redesign in 2007, offers several new advertising units.
“There's enormous pressure on digital assets, digital content, digital subscriptions, digital media,” McMahon said. “Our platforms hadn't gotten a major overhaul in many years, so when we saw the change and where the growth was going to continue to move, we knew we needed to make an investment.”
She added that the changes provide “more arsenal” for the sales force. “This gives advertisers one place to really go, and now we can also integrate more in terms of digital opportunities that can come with it,” she said. “As we develop apps and we do a lot of coverage around events that [are] digital, you can really take some of those market moments and connect the dots across the portfolio much easier.”
Aviation Week is promoting the various changes via email marketing, direct mail, house ads (both print and online) and social media channels.
“We've had lots of transition and lots of change,” McMahon said. “We've made a tremendous investment in data, talent [and] technology, and in AW&ST it's leveraging an investment in audience that we've spent years building.”
McMahon said she expects Aviation Week to build on the changes by ramping up product development that focuses on digital plays, data and marketing services.
In another change, Joseph Anselmo was named as Aviation Week's next editor in chief last month. He will take charge in December, succeeding Anthony Velocci Jr., who is retiring after 23 years at the magazine.